Cowl prep (pinholes) & camloc install - which first?

[Rick_A]

Will mounting camloc studs in the cowl now, make it more difficult to fill the pinholes later on?

In other words, should I do all the filling and sanding (at least where the camloc's go) before installing the studs?

[szicree]

The camloc grommets are easily removed, so it makes no difference which is done first.

[Vern]

It's easy to hold the cowl together with clecos until final painting is done, then install camlocks.

[Jim P]

Neither right or wrong, I did the pinhole filling first, then drilled for c-locs. I did need to remove the c-locs when I did some painting, and they are somewhat a pain to remove the snap ring (there's propbably a trick that I missed). Easy to go back on, though. I just think it's easier to do the bulk of the pinhole filling and sanding up front.

jim

[deene]

I'm at this stage on my 8...I went ahead and drilled for the camlocs since I wanted to have the cowling in its final position to determine the filling required.

I just used the studs with the gromets and didn't put the lock rings on. This means that the studs fall out when I take the cowl off and I have to reinset the studs when putting the cowl on.

Thus, with the cowl off and studs out, I can easily fill and sand...

[Rick_A]

Deene, great idea not putting on the lock rings since that was the real concern.

[Gerald Clabots]

I used some rubber o-rings to hold the fastners in place, Only put the metal clips on after the cowl was painted. I painted before flying.
I went to a supply house and bought a package with 50 in. About the same price as buying 2 in the hardware store. Bought one at the hardware store to determine the correct size.

Gerry